


Burn

by CGWicks



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27146843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CGWicks/pseuds/CGWicks
Summary: Thirty years after the case of the missing kids of 1987 that shook Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a new horror attraction is set to open in the town of Hurricane, Utah.  Intrigued by the mystery and the legends, Carlton Burke's son, Scott, seeks to sneak into the establishment with his friends the night before it's due to open.  Only tragedy awaits them.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

** Burn **

**‘A Five Nights at Freddy’s Fanfiction’**

**By C.G. Wicks**

** 1 **

A bell rang out through the still air from Hurricane High School. A large, blocky building of red brick and grey render, its large black windows looked out across the landscape towards the rocky mountain range that surrounded the town. A mob of students began making their way out of the building into the large parking lot in front of it towards the awaiting cars and busses. Their eyes squinted in the bright sunlight as they passed through the doors, four of the students walked out together and looked across at the brightly lit mountainous landscape that was visible from all directions. It was Friday afternoon and they were in the middle of making their plans for the weekend. One of them, Scott Burke, a pale boy with curly red hair and a sly smirk on his face, looked slowly from the blocky building to the distant red hills speckled with shrubbery and watched as they rippled in the heat from the bitumen of the parking lot.

Scott’s girlfriend, Amber Jameson, was standing next to him. Her blonde hair and cheery face seemed to shine in the sunlight as she spoke animatedly with the other two students who were with them, working out their plans. She was always energetic, brightening up the people around her. The other two students, Ryan and Darcy Sheppard, were twins who were new in town and were glad that they had managed to make friends so quickly. They both had freckled faces and straight brown hair, Darcy’s tied back and Ryan’s fringe always covering the top of his glasses.

Scott wasn’t paying much attention to the other three as they spoke. His hands in his jacket pockets, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, the sly smirk never leaving his face. Amber turned to him and spoke.

“What about you? Any ideas?”

“Oh, I might have one,” Scott replied, taking his time to speak as a few more students passed them by. Once he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard, he continued. “You know that Fazbear’s Fright that’s opening up next week?”

Ryan frowned slightly. “That horror house or whatever it is?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. I think I can get us in early…” Scott smiled at them all, savouring the attention as he waited for one of them to ask him to elaborate. Amber only regarded him with a knowing suspicion, trying to work out if she was right about what he was going to say next.

“You mean, break in and sneak around,” she raised her eyebrows at him as she spoke. “Maybe steal a few things?” Scott acted shocked as he looked around them again, presumably to make sure that there weren’t any stragglers that would overhear them.

“Woah, woah. I never said that! But if that’s what you want to do, then I’m up for it.”

The twins gave each other a blank look. Being new to town, they had no idea what Scott was talking about or why he would want to sneak into a horror funhouse a few days before it opened. Amber was still watching Scott closely as though she couldn’t decide if this was a joke or not. He was always trying to be funny, but his sense of humour never quite landed properly. Scott, however, seemed to be gauging their reaction to his idea before deciding whether or not he _was_ joking. Darcy spoke up.

“Why would you want to go there? Isn’t it for kids or something?”

“Oh, no…” Scott’s face lit up as he spoke. “It’s not just some kids’ thing. It’s based on these old murders that happened like thirty years ago.” When the twins continued to look at him blankly, he added, “It was a huge thing at the time. These kids all disappeared at this pizzeria and they were never found again.” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Okay, I have to get going. My dad will be waiting for me.” He started to leave. “Come to my house tomorrow night and I’ll tell you all about it. But don’t mention it to my dad. He doesn’t like to talk about it.” 

The three of them stood there watching him leave, then Ryan turned to Amber, whose face had become a scowl.

“Are we really going to sneak into some kids’ horror house and steal things?”

“Well, if I know my Scott,” Amber was staring past him, still watching Scott as he walked away, “he’ll be doing it with or without us. So, we may as well try to stop him from hurting himself while he’s doing it.” She looked at them. “And well, he seems to like you two.”

With that, she left them as she crossed the parking lot and disappeared into the mass of cars glinting and rippling in the air rising from the hot bitumen, her blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight.

*

The four teenagers were sitting around the dining room table at Scott’s house. A board game lay between them, the game half played as they waited for their pizza to be delivered. Nobody had yet mentioned any more about Scott’s idea, and enjoying the anticipation in the room, Scott was in no hurry to explain further. The other, more pressing reason for being quiet about it was that his father, Carlton Burke was in the next room watching TV. Scott was careful not to let him know about his idea, especially as the last time he asked him about the new attraction, Fazbear’s Fright, Carlton had reacted badly.

Carlton Burke was usually a very jovial man. His hair as red and as curly as his son’s, he was an accomplished voice and stage actor and locally known comedian. His great sense of humour was a trait that his son admired and tried to live up to, but unfortunately, he usually just came across as crass and awkward. Carlton’s demeaner changed quite suddenly one day when Scott had asked him about the attraction. The light mood in the room had changed, the air seemed to thicken. This was not a topic that was to be breached often. Carlton only responded that it was being built on the deaths of his old classmates and the grief of the families.

“Kids died, Scott. And now, one generation’s tragedy is another’s amusement. Just bastards in suits trying to make a buck.”

There was a shadow behind his eyes that Scott had never seen before. Whatever this new establishment was, whatever history it was built on had obviously affected his father in a profound way. He knew not to bring it up again.

The truth was that Carlton had been good friends with two of the children that had gone missing in 1987. Two boys, Gabriel and Jeremy were with him at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza celebrating another child’s birthday, when his attention had been drawn from them for only a moment. When he looked back over to where they had been, they had simply vanished. Had he remained with them, he might have vanished with them, too.

Carlton Burke remembered it all too clearly. He remembered waiting for them to come back. He remembered they boys’ parents become more and more agitated and scared as they looked for them. He remembered clearly how they kept their worst fear inside, but the façade slipped more and more as the minutes ticked on. He saw their parents’ worst fear become reality that day. It was a memory that had stuck with him as he watched his own son grow into the same age that they had been when it happened. Sometimes when he was alone, he would look through his old school photos and see the portraits of his friends and himself grinning up at him, some of their baby teeth having just fallen out.

The worst part was the dreams. Often, he would see them again and again in that party room and he would try to warn them. Would try to tell them to come with him so that they would be safe. Each time, he would turn around and they would vanish. Other times, they appeared to him as adults, smiling at him as they hung out as old friends talking about their families that never were. At some point he would confess to them that he believed that they had died. They would laugh and say to him that no, they were fine. They were happy.

Carlton preferred those dreams even though he would wake in the early hours with tear streaks wetting his pillow. It was dreams like those that made him understand how ancient cultures came to the conclusions that there was an afterlife. They were so real, and so comforting. In those small hours of the morning, Carlton believed quite easily that wherever they were now, they were happy.

_Ding-dong!_

Scott stood up from the dining room table and walked towards the front door to collect the pizza. When he returned, he was carrying them as though they were on a silver tray, his nose in the air like an old butler.

“Pizza… is _served!_ ”

He sat back down and the four of them ate as they continued to play their game and have idle chit-chat, all the while keeping an eye on Carlton in the other room. Finally, Carlton turned the TV off, got up from the couch and picked up the script that was on the coffee table for his reviewing and withdrew into his office to read over it, passing by them at the table with a glance. They heard the door close and the latch click into place. This was Scott’s chance.

“Okay,” he whispered as they all leaned in closer. He was speaking more to the twins as Amber already knew the backstory. “Thirty years ago, there was this pizza restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It was really famous. They had all of these robots walking around that served the food and they would play songs up on a stage and all that. Lots of money went into this place. Other places at the time only had animatronic puppets that were part of the stage, but these things would walk around and interact with everyone. It was all going great, and then these kids all went missing.”

He stood up and walked over to a bookshelf in the corner and pulled out an old folder that he had hidden there earlier. He opened it and placed it on the table in between them. In it were several newspaper articles that were cut out and slipped into plastic pockets. Each of them was about the case of the missing children.

“Yeah, it was big news. No-one quite knows what happened to them. Grandpa Clay was a detective at the time and was on the case. I asked him about it. He said it was really personal to him because my dad was the same age as the kids that went missing, and he had already taken him there a few times. So, it really scared him. It scared everybody. The only clue they had was some footage of someone in a yellow rabbit suit who was seen on each day a kid disappeared.” He took a mouthful of cola before continuing, completely aware of the undivided attention he was holding. “Years later, people said that the place was haunted. They said that the robots on the stage smelled like dead bodies and that there was all sorts of mucus and gunk coming out of their eyes and mouths. Real horror movie stuff.

“That place got shut down and it looks like this new place opening up soon is full of old relics from back then. I’ve been looking into it. There were four characters. I want to see if we can get a piece from each of them. Hopefully, each of us can get a head. Think about it! How great would that be!”

He looked at them expectantly, eyebrows raised and a faint smile on his face. The twins didn’t seem to know what to say. They were staring down at the faded images in the newspaper articles, looking closely at a photo of the four characters. There was a bear, a rabbit, a chicken, and a fox. They then looked back up at Scott and seemed to be having a hard time deciding if they actually like him that much or not. But they were currently nobodies at their school. The thought of all four of them collecting a head each and being a part of the story that Scott was sure to tell everybody was quite tempting. Amber, however had other thoughts.

“I just think it’s disgusting,” she spat. “That whole place. They’re celebrating a bunch of murders! Those families are still here! I wonder how they felt when they saw this place being advertised. It’s being made up to look like the old restaurant. The whole thing is sick!” Scott turned to her, his face more serious.

“Well then, what better way to show them how we all feel about it? Right before opening day, they’ll probably go in there and find the place all torn up. That might give them the message.”

There was a determination in his eyes that Amber recognised. He seemed driven to know more about the incident that affected his father so much. Carlton had shown his disgust at the new funhouse already, maybe Scott wanted to do right by him? Or maybe he just wanted to be a school legend by stealing the four mascots heads and showing them to everybody at school the next week. Either way, Amber knew that there would be ne talking him out of it. He would either be doing it alone or they could all share in his glory. And at least this way they could possibly keep him out of any real trouble.

*

They finished their pizza, all of them in deep thought about what they were planning to do. A noise from down the hall snapped them all back to reality and caused Scott to jump up and shove the folder back into the bookshelf as his father made his way through the dining room. It was getting late. The four teenagers called it a night and Scott walked them to the front door.

“I’ll message you all tomorrow. I should be able to pick you all up, but worst case, we may have to sneak out and meet up somewhere.”

Amber gave him a hug and walked off towards her car. The twins said goodbye and followed her and climbed into the back seat. Nobody spoke as Amber reversed the car out of the driveway and headed for the twins’ house. They were all thinking the same thing: this was a bad idea. Something about the hushed nature of the planning and the tragic story behind it left a dull pit in their stomachs. It was a mix somewhere between dread and excitement but tinged with guilt at the idea of disrespecting a dark chapter of the town’s history.

The night air was still, the silence punctuated by chirping crickets as the car pulled up in front of the twins’ house. The twins climbed out and thanked Amber for the ride. She drove off and they walked towards the front door, listening to the sound of her engine fading away into the distance. Darcy rifled through her pocket for the keys before speaking.

“This feels wrong…”

“I know,” replied Ryan, his eyes indiscernible behind his glasses in the dark. “But it does sound kind of fun.” 

“What if we get caught?”

“What if we don’t? What could happen, really? We go in there, look around, see what we can grab and then leave again. Plus, I bet it’ll actually be really creepy with no-one else around. It’ll probably be better than when it’s open, anyway.”

Darcy pursed her lips and frowned as she slid the key into the lock and opened the front door but didn’t mention it again as they walked in and closed the door behind them. Their parents, who were in the living room scrolling through their phones while the TV was on in the background, glanced up as they walked in.

“Hi, kids,” said their mother. “How was it at Scott’s house?”

“It was fine,” replied Darcy, taking off her shoes. “We’re thinking of hanging out again tomorrow night. He said there’s a good pizza place in town that we need to check out.” Ryan looked at her. She seemed so against the plan that they had for the following night, but she was already making up a cover story for it.

“Well, tomorrow’s a school night. So, don’t be out too late. Do you need a ride?”

“Oh no, Scott said he was going to pick us up.”

“Okay. Just let us know if anything changes.”

“Sure thing. Goodnight.” Darcy left for her bedroom as their parents turned their attention back towards their phones, ignoring the television that was on in front of them. Ryan took off his shoes and ambled along past them towards his room, not quite able to look his parents in the face.


	2. Chapter 2

** 2 **

Amber Jameson spent most of the next morning with a dull bundle of nerves and guilt squirming in her stomach. Though sneaking into Fazbear’s Fright had been Scott’s idea, it was her information about the staff schedules that made it possible. Her older brother was friends with the operator there and she was fully aware that it would be empty on Sunday night. In the weeks leading up to the opening day, the staff had had several test runs of the place to make sure that everything was operational. Though Amber despised the funhouse attraction being built on an old local tragedy and would like to see it vandalised or shut down, the dull weight in her stomach told her that it was better to leave it alone.

She and Scott Burke had been a couple for nearly six months. Though she wasn’t too impressed by his sense of humour, she was always drawn to his confidence and sheer force of personality. Deep down she knew that he was a bad influence on her, but him being her first real boyfriend, she didn’t really have any comparison to put him against. He had an effect on her. More than once he had convinced her to take part in a prank of one sort or another and she had been left feeling a small degree of shame afterwards, but this latest plan of his felt different. This one felt dangerous. But she just couldn’t bring herself to pull out.

Darcy’s cover story for the groups’ Sunday night adventure had quickly become an actual plan once she had messaged the rest of the group about it. Scott seemed to take the idea and ran with it.

“Well this way, we’re not actually lying to anyone,” he had messaged to them with a wink-face. “We really are just going out for dinner… with a slight detour on the way back.”

The day dragged on and the plans for the night being messaged back and forth between them all became clearer. They were to wear hooded jumpers and to bring scarves to hide their faces if need be. They would wear empty backpacks to stash any souvenirs they might find. Scott was going to bring a large duffle bag as he planned to steal the four mascot heads.

“If I’m going to look like a burglar,” he had texted them all with a photo of himself in the mirror holding the bag over his shoulder, his face hidden behind a black balaclava. “I may as well go all out.”

Finally, the time had come when Amber was getting ready in her bedroom, unplugging her fully charged phone, when she heard the familiar sound of Scott’s car horn honk just outside her house. She called out to her parents that she was leaving and hurried out towards the front door, hiding her empty backpack from view as she strode past. She climbed into the front seat and turned to see Scott suddenly wearing his balaclava pointing his index fingers at her, his palms together like he was holding a gun.

“Give me your wallet!”

“Ha-ha, Scott.”

“Well, at least give me a kiss.”

Scott took off his mask and pulled back onto the road and headed towards the twins’ house. They were standing at the front door, wearing their empty backpacks, waiting for them as they approached. They climbed into the back seat and pulled on their seatbelts as Scott reversed out of their driveway. Amber turned around to face them.

“Have any trouble getting out tonight?”

“No,” Darcy replied. “We could have walked right in front of them dressed in black masks with our bags on and told them we were going out robbing people, and they probably wouldn’t have looked up from their phones.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “So, I’d say we’re pretty much free for the night.”

“Nice,” said Scott. “You guys are lucky your parents don’t give a crap. My dad keeps trying to be all _involved_ and wants to know what I’m doing all the time, like some sort of d _ecent parent!”_ He quickly realised what he said, the silence from them punctuating that last sentence, and he quickly added: “So, where do we want to go for pizza, anyway? There’s a few places in town.”

They made their way down the flat, wide highway that seemed to lead all the way to the mountain ranges beyond and pulled off towards one of the many options that stretch of road provided. The sun sank low as they ate in the restaurant, long shadows stretching their way towards them, threatening to engulf their car in the parking lot. They talked, they joked, they almost forgot what they were planning on doing. It was feeling just like an ordinary night enjoyed by four teenagers on the weekend, their only worry being school the next morning. The collective nervousness that had filled the air on the car ride had almost vanished, until Scott finished his slice of pizza and leaned in close over the table to speak.

“Okay, so I’ve been past this place a few times. It looks like a converted warehouse. I’m not sure how hard it’ll be to get in there. But from what Amber has told me, they had to cheap-out on a lot of things. Hopefully, that includes security. But if not, that’s what the masks are for. If we hear alarms, then we get out of there.”

He was wide-eyed, no trace of a joke on his face now. This was something he was taking seriously. The sky outside was becoming a dark blue, the mountains below them now black against it. Scott checked the time on his phone. It was 8:30pm. It was time.

They climbed back into the car, their hearts all beating harder than usual as they put on their seatbelts. Nobody spoke as they drove. They pulled off the highway and after a few turns they were driving down a warehouse district. Concrete yards filled with semi-trailers and forklifts lined up in rows were enclosed by chain-link fences. Among them were many tall warehouses built with cinderblocks and clad with metal sheets. Amber’s heart beat harder as Scott slowed the car down. He stopped in front of a run-down looking warehouse on their right and pointed to it.

“There it is. The soon-to-be-opened Fazbear’s Fright.”

It stood strong against the darkening sky, its name painted across the cinderblock front lit up only by a nearby streetlight. The front door and windows beneath it were dark. Scott turned the headlights off and parked down a side-alley on the building’s left between a long brick wall and the chain-link fence that surrounded the front parking lot. Amber watched him. Now would be the only chance to turn back, but nobody protested.

He turned the car off, climbed out and closed the door behind him before retrieving his balaclava and bag from the trunk. One by one, the others followed suit.

**

It was a still night. Only the soft tinkling coming from the car as it cooled could be heard as the four of them stood and stared at the converted warehouse in front of them. Without speaking, Scott pulled on his balaclava and pulled his hood up over his head. The others did the same, though they all only had scarves with which to pull up to hide their faces. Scott led them along the chain-link fence, further into the alleyway until they were right next to the left side of the building.

The fence surrounded the whole building and the empty parking lot in front of it, save for the left wall that ran along the alleyway. Scott knew from his previous visits that there was an entrance at the front and an exit out the back with a path along the right-hand side leading back around to the parking lot. The attraction was designed as a one-way path, with the customers coming out the other end.

As quickly and as quietly as he could, Scott hoisted himself up over the chain-link fence, trying not to rattle it as he did. He landed softly on the ground and crept his way towards the building, double-checking for cameras that he was sure weren’t there. The others watched, holding their breath as he made his way carefully towards the nearest window. For all they knew, there was a security alarm ready to go off as soon as he touched the glass.

Scott peered in. All that he could see were some display tables here and there, like a museum that hadn’t been stocked properly yet. It was too dark inside. There weren’t even security lights. Amber broke the silence and whispered out across the still night air.

“What do you see? Is there anyone in there?”

“No,” replied Scott as he gestured for them to approach. “It looks pretty empty. I can see the horror house entrance, though. Wait…”

Suddenly, he rushed back towards the fence and jumped over it. He began to walk further down into the alleyway and stopped a few paces along the building’s grey cinderblock wall. “Down here. I think I see our way in.”

They made their way with him down the alleyway until they reached a side door that had been obscured by the dark; the light above it was off. It looked as though there was no power to the place. Scott grabbed the door handle and jiggled it. As they expected, it did not open. Without missing a beat, Scott pulled a small crowbar from his duffle bag and wedged it behind the handle. After some pulling, he felt the handle give and the door push in slightly. They all stood still, waiting for any sound of an alarm or security system. When none came, Scott pushed the door open and slowly stepped inside. Once they were all in, they closed the door behind them and wedged it shut so as to not attract attention. Scott pulled out his phone and turned on the light and began to look around. They all followed suit and explored.

The room was largely empty, everything of interest was hung on the walls and the glass-top display tables that ran along beneath them. On their left, the back of the building, were blown up prints of old newspaper articles and photos of the old Freddy Fazbear’s Family Pizza, and the animatronic characters. They were of the cases of the missing children, and later reports of health code violations, citing the company’s impending shutdown.

Looking further along, they spotted five photos lined up along the opposite wall. Each one was of a child of about six years old, with information about them printed underneath. There were two girls and three boys, two of which Scott recognised from his father’s old class photos. With a pang of guilt, he pictured his father waiting for him to come home. Further along there was a photo of another girl about the same age, and he could just see the name ‘Charlotte’ above it. Her story was different to the others. She didn’t go missing, she was found dead one night in the back alley of the restaurant. Another cold case. Next to her were photos of a man and a woman: her father Henry and her aunt Jennifer. Further along was a photo of William Afton, the CEO who had vanished not long after the franchise closed.

Not wanting to waste any time loitering, they made their way quickly through the wide room. They passed a long table in the centre of the room that showed four miniature models of the restaurants, ranging from a small diner to the larger, more established third restaurant of 1987 that everyone knew, ending in a smaller restaurant of the 90’s at the end that had been the final one. They hurried towards a door that was on their right near the front of the building. The wall protruded here as the door led to a stairway to the horror attraction below.

This door was unlocked. The only barrier facing them now as the door swung open was the pitch-black darkness that the stairs below led down into. Amber checked her phone battery. Still 93% charged. She stayed close to Scott as he stepped through the doorway.

They hardly breathed as they went, the only sound from them was their footsteps on the stairs. At the bottom was another door. Amber reached out and opened it gently, letting it swing slowly away from them to reveal only more darkness. They stepped through and turned right, finding themselves in a long, tiled corridor. 

**

The floor beneath them was an endless repetition of black and white tiles, the walls were of grey concrete (though appeared to be actually made of plywood), the black and white tiled pattern running along the length of them in a thick strip about halfway up from the floor. Above this strip, plastered along the walls at odd, crooked angles were crayon drawings of stick figure animal characters. A bear, a bunny, a chicken, and a fox. The four mascots. The teenagers walked slowly, unconsciously listening out for any sound ahead of them, vaguely aware of the glint of the occasional deactivated security camera. They shivered; this place felt like a tomb.

The glow of their lights didn’t reach far, and they had no idea how long the corridor was until they reached the end. A doorway stood on the left-hand side leading away into more darkness. They passed through it and were turned right again. This corridor looked just like the last, but there was a shape coming into view about halfway along the wall on their right. On the ground was a yellow character head of an animatronic chicken. Scott sped up and crouched down in front of it.

“Oh, excellent!” There was a joyous gleam in his eye as he examined it. “This is a Chica head! Well, this one’s going into the bag…” He reached out to pick it up but found that it was bolted in place. He reached into his bag for his crowbar, determined to acquire the head. “I’ll just have to persuade it a little—”

“What is _that_?!” gasped Amber. 

All eyes were on her. She had walked past Scott and had reached the end of the corridor where a doorway stood at the end and another to the left. She was backing away towards the others, keeping her eyes on something ahead of her. The others all looked. There was a pile of gift-wrapped presents to the right of the doors, tied off with glittering bows, but that wasn’t what she was looking at. Scott stood and raised his phone, willing the small light to fight through the darkness, and stepped a few paces forward. Then he saw it.

A human figure was standing just beyond the end doorway, perfectly still with its head slumped slightly, facing them. Thinking that they had been caught by a security guard, Scott was almost ready to turn around and run. He could feel his car keys in his pocket. They all stood perfectly still, nobody making a sound. The silence pressed against them as they waited for the figure to move, to make a sound. When none came, they slowly approached it.

In the dim lights of their phones, features were coming into view. It wasn’t a person. It was an old animatronic rabbit. It was tall, its long ears nearly brushing the top of the doorway, one of them missing the top half. It’s once vibrant yellow colour was faded into a dull, rotten green. It was very old and worn. Parts of it were torn away and appeared to have gunk spilling slowly out of it from the joints and hinges. Its face was defined by its large, toothy smile that went halfway around its head and two large, glass eyes that sat just behind the dark eyeholes. It looked, and smelled, like a corpse that had stood up and began to walk, only to find itself still locked in its tomb. Ryan walked slowly up to it, fascinated by it.

“Uh, Scott? Didn’t your grandfather say something about a yellow rabbit suit?”

“Yeah, he did,” replied Scott, his voice quiet. “He said that the only clue they had was that the kids were last seen on the cameras being lured away by a man in a yellow rabbit costume.” 

They stared at it, taking in its details, picturing against their will the image of a small child looking up and seeing it staring down at them. Darcy now stepped towards it, the same fascinated look on her face as that of her brother’s. Amber made a disgusted sound and hung back where she was.

“Okay, that is _messed_ up!” Her voice was fierce with anger. “They want to send people -families with kids- through here to replicate the last moments of those kids, and they even have the animatronic that the guy wore set up here ready to go! Its gross!”

The other three had been looking at Amber, but quickly turned back towards the robotic rabbit. They all thought they heard it make a faint noise as she spoke. Amber went quiet and stared at it with the others. She thought she saw it move. Thought she saw the tiniest movement of it turning towards her, but as it continued to stand perfectly still, she figured it must have been a trick of the dark and the soft lights of the many phones moving around it. Nevertheless, they could almost feel a tightly wound energy within it, ready to spring loose at any moment. Scott grinned slightly as he turned back to her.

“It’s gross, but it’s effective. I’m guessing it’s a broken old prop that they found somewhere.” He looked past the animatronic and saw an arcade machine against the wall of the next room behind it. “Let’s keep moving.”

They squeezed past the yellow character, careful not to touch it for fear of activating or disturbing it and found themselves in a rectangular room leading left of the door they just walked through. Another doorway stood at the end of the room on the left again so that the whole path they took curved back onto itself. There were four arcade machines lined up along the wall, all inactive. They moved through the next doorway and saw the one on their immediate left, the pile of gifts just past it that they had just walked past. They carried on straight.

This corridor had dozens of silver stars hanging from the ceiling by silver ribbons. The walls here had large images of pizzas plastered along them like giant wagon wheels. Amber remarked on this.

“It certainly _looks_ like a pizza place. But I wouldn’t want to eat anything in here.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” replied Scott, looking her up and down, that sly grin reappearing on his face.

“Oh, don’t be gross!” she scowled at him before speeding up to join the twins ahead of them.

Their footsteps quietly disturbing the thick silence, they reached a doorway at the end which opened up to another corridor, this one leading both left and right. The four of them stopped and looked around. It was all starting to look the same, the constant tiled floor not helping with their mounting confusion. The air was becoming stuffy and thick. They took another left and found themselves nearly walking into another character.

On a thin stand at the end of the corridor, a doorway leading away to the right of it, was the pale blue, empty torso and head of an animatronic rabbit character. Whether deliberately done or not, this prop had the look of a twisted skull, its unhinged and crooked jaw screaming in silent pain. Once again, Scott approached it and tried to lift the head off to take as a souvenir. This one was also bolted tight. With a frustrated groan, Scott turned and began to walk back down the corridor.

Darcy leaned into the doorway next to the prop and peered into it. The head of a red animatronic fox was bolted to the wall just past it looking down another corridor that was parallel to the one they were in. She turned back and joined the others who had made their way down to a doorway at the end, facing the right. This one led into a large corridor with a long window running along the left wall that looked into another room. They made their way down to the end where it turned left and revealed another frame stand with what looked like a torso and head of a brown bear character. At the end was a set of steps that led up to a door with _EXIT_ written above it. Another door was on their left, leading into the room beyond the long window which they had just walked past.

It was a simple wooden office door with a large window in the top half of it. Scott stepped forward to open it. The handle held firm in his hand. Locked. He again pulled out the crowbar from his duffle bag and rather than forcing the door open, simply smashed it through the window with a loud crash and reached in to unlock it from the inside.

They looked in through the open doorway. Inside was what looked like a security office. A computer sat on a wooden desk in the corner just under the long window, a swivel desk chair tucked in under it. On the opposite side, along the wall to their right was a large metal locker and next to that was a clutter of boxes full of salvaged parts painstakingly scraped together over months of searching. A door opposite them across the room read _STORAGE._ They stepped in and looked around. A box lay in the corner on their left, full of empty animatronics heads that looked different from the ones they had walked past. These ones were sleeker and smaller. These were from the ‘toy’ versions of the characters that were only briefly used at the restaurant in 1987.

Scott dived straight for them. These ones weren’t nailed down and would fit in his bag easier than the old original ones. He inspected each one closely, a greedy look on his face, before tucking them away in his bag. The others continued to look around the office as he rummaged through the box. Darcy was looking at the other boxes of props next to the locker, holding her phone high up above them. There were more character heads and parts, but these ones were quite damaged and dirty.

Ryan was standing in the far corner on the other side of the locker. He had found a switchboard was looking over it closely, trying to decide which switch the pull.

“Everyone still got their faces covered?”

They all turned to him, wondering what he meant, when suddenly the room was filled with bright light as he powered on the attraction. The air stirred around them as the vents in the ceiling activated, relieving the stuffiness. Amber turned her phone light off, noticing that the power was now down to 64%. She also noticed, with a pang, that she had no phone signal down here. Eyes slowly adjusting to the glare, Ryan saw that the computer now had power. He sat down in front of it an turned it on.

He was looking at a security feed of the corridor they had first walked down at the other end. The picture quality was poor with intermittent burst of static, making it take a moment to recognise what was on the screen. Flicking through the camera feeds, he saw that the corridors of the attraction were now partially lit up by lights placed in odd corners at strange angles, giving off creepy shadows and keeping the place relatively dark. The empty animatronic heads they had walked past were actually had lights in them, making them look like jack ‘o lanterns with glowing eyes. 

“Oh look, the arcade machines are on!” said Ryan, watching the screen.

Scott, now pleased with himself and his haul, took Amber’s hand and to lead her away with him.

“Come on, let’s see what this place actually has in store for us!”

They left hurriedly back through the corridor and disappeared into the labyrinth, Scott’s full duffle bag bouncing behind him. Darcy was rummaging through the steel locker, seeing what she could find while Ryan continued to flick through the camera feeds.

“Wait…”

Ryan paused, staring at the screen. Something was wrong. Darcy walked up behind him to look at it, too. The yellow rabbit animatronic was different, somehow. It was still standing in the same spot just within the doorway to the arcade room. But it looked like it had moved. They watched it closely. It was as still as it was when they walked past it, but now its head looked like it had turned slightly.

It was now facing the direction of the office they were in.


	3. Chapter 3

** 3 **

They watched the old animatronic on the screen for a few more moments, and when nothing happened, Darcy turned away to resume her perusal of the pile of boxes behind them. Ryan, now satisfied that nothing was happening, continued switching through the camera feeds. Maybe it was just the effect of this place, but he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling he got from that animatronic character. It was surely just a prop with a swivelling head, one designed to turn left and right, or perhaps watch people as they walked past, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was staring right at him right now from the other side of the building. He could almost feel its gaze through the walls, boring into him.

Darcy rummaged through the pile of parts and props before wandering into the storage room, looking for something to take. The original plan was for each of them to take a prop head and to take them into school tomorrow, but since Scott had grabbed four of the ‘toy’ character heads, presumably one for each of them (though it felt like he took them all for himself), the whole excursion felt finished. Now, they were just waiting around for Scott and Amber to get back and they would leave. She felt robbed. She did not want her backpack to be empty when they left. Finding only spare sections of wall and tins of paint, she left the storage room and continued to rummage through the box of animatronic parts next to the locker.

Ryan turned his head towards her as she worked and watched. She had surprised him with her determination to come and do this with them. She had usually been a straight shooter, a follows-the-rules type of girl. She was initially hesitant to go along with this plan, which was essentially breaking and entering, but now it was as though she had decided that she was tired of being ignored.

They were ignored by their parents, they had been ignored at their previous school in their hometown. They had always struggled to make friends and to fit in. They weren’t even the weird kids, they were just always forgotten about. They were nobodies. Nothing exceptional about them. Now, they had friends. Friends who wanted them to come with them and break the rules. It was against their nature and what they had always been taught, but it was making them _friends._ Ryan saw it switch in her the previous night when she lied to their parents so easily. She was done being ignored. She was going to come home with a stolen prop, and she wasn’t going to hide it carefully. She would shove it under their parents’ faces if she had to. If only they could look away from their phones.

She straightened, brushed her long brown hair aside and tossed something at Ryan. It was a dirty, scuffed, brown bear head with a small black top hat on top. Its jaw was missing. It was a Freddy Fazbear head. Darcy faced him.

“There’s one. Hopefully, there’ll be another one in here.”

She knelt back down and resumed her search. Ryan turned back to the monitor and watched the screen. He stopped flicking through feeds. He had found them. Scott and Amber were in the corridor with the Foxy head at the end, its light flickering occasionally. They were huddled together about halfway down it in a particularly shadowed spot, obviously having gotten distracted on their way through the attraction. Ryan watched for a moment. They were partially hidden in the dark, moving around where they stood, but he couldn’t quite work out what they were doing. Suddenly, he felt as though he was watching something that he shouldn’t be, but before switching away, noticed a button on the screen that read _PLAY AUDIO._

A smile spread across Ryan’s face. This office must also be where they controlled the attraction. Not sure what sound to expect, but anticipating a scare either way, Ryan clicked the button on the screen and watched the two figures in the dark jump in fright as a voice played through unseen speakers, a child’s voice saying ‘ _Hello…?’_

Chuckling to himself as he watched the two of them straighten themselves out, he turned to show Darcy this feature, and paused as he spotted the blinking red light on the desk phone. He looked at the small screen on it. There were two voice messages.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he reached out and pressed the playback button. It beeped, and a male voice emitted from the speaker.

_“Hello? Hello…? Looks like I just missed you. Hey, so when you get in tomorrow, make sure that the animatronic is turned off. Our technicians want to have a proper look at it before letting it loose on the customers… They think it might actually be dangerous. They say it’s one of the originals, so they want to check over it. It’s gotta be about fifty years old. Anyway, just leave it switched off in the meantime. It can still be a scary prop where it is.”_

The message ended with a beep. Intrigued, Ryan pressed the button again to play the next message. Darcy had now stopped what she was doing to listen more closely.

“ _Me again. So uh, I’ve just been contacted by the police about that old animatronic. They want to bring it in and have a look at it themselves. They think it might have something to do with that guy, Afton, who vanished just after the restaurant closed. The CEO? It might also be related to the missing kids incident. I reckon they think it might actually be that yellow rabbit costume the guy wore to lure them away. It’s probably one of the two springlock suits they made back in the day. So, when you get in, just put it away in storage and let the police handle it. Also, we’ll have to make sure we don’t have any other springlock parts in storage. They’re very dangerous to handle. Okay, I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”_

Darcy turned to Ryan with an incredulous look on her face as the message ended with a beep.

“They think that robot thing might actually be the suit that the killer wore? Is it wearable?”

“That’s how it sounds, yeah,” replied Ryan, turning back to the monitor. “I guess Amber was right. I wonder how anyone could wear that—” Ryan stopped, his face now stricken with fear. “Darcy, it’s gone!”

“What’s gone?” she replied, walking up behind him to look closer at the screen, her voice nervous.

“The damn robot’s gone!”

They stared at the feed from the camera pointing down into the arcade room from the ceiling. Through the intermittent static, they could see that the room was quite empty. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ryan switched through the feeds, following along the corridors towards where he thought Scott and Amber where. The animatronic rabbit was standing in the corridor with the broken Bonnie at the end; the corridor that was parallel with the one the couple was currently hiding in. Its head was slightly tilted at an angle, making its broad, toothy smile look somehow deranged beneath its dark eyeholes.

Ryan switched back to the arcade machines and played the audio feature in that room. A child’s voice laughed joyfully from a speaker, echoing down the cement-grey corridors. He switched back to the other camera and watched as the old, ragged animatronic turned its head and torso towards the sound. It looked and moved like a reanimated carcass. Ryan was breathing hard; the air was becoming stuffy again. Was the animatronic actually dangerous? What would it do if they ran into it in one of the corridors?

The animatronic had made its way back to the arcade and was staring at the machines’ flickering screens, perfectly still. If Ryan hadn’t seen it move, he wouldn’t have believed that it could walk. It might have been his imagination or simply just the effect of this place working on him, but he was beginning to feel a sentience from it. Though it seemed to react and move towards sound cues, there was something ominous and sinister about the way it looked around its environment. It looked like it was learning.

Scott and Amber were now peeking around the doorway between the Foxy head and the Bonnie head, looking spooked but grinning as though they were playing a game of hide-and-seek. They crept towards the corridor that the animatronic had just walked down and peered through the mess of hanging silver stars at its dark figure standing facing away from them in the far doorway. Ryan went cold. He pulled out his phone to warn them, but as he did, he saw that he had no phone signal. Darcy tried hers and found that she had no signal, either.

They watched the screen in horror as the pair crept up to the animatronic. Ryan went to lure it further away with the audio feature, but what would happen when it reached the far end? How could they warn the others without making any noise?

The air was becoming stuffy and thick, and the picture on the screen faded to static. They were blind. Suddenly, an alarm blared from within the office. A red light was flashing and on the screen was a pop up message warning of a ventilation failure. Evidently, this attraction was built with old technology and used parts that weren’t up to code. Ryan hastily clicked the reboot button and worked to restart the camera feeds. The alarms stopped and they heard the vents shudder and flow with fresh air again. When the picture finally returned, he couldn’t find anyone on it.

Scott and Amber had run off and hidden behind a doorway just as the animatronic turned towards them. The alarm had startled them into hiding, though Ryan doubted whether they knew that they might actually be in danger. He switched through feeds, but he couldn’t find the animatronic. The corridors were empty. Darcy let out a gasp and he looked up. There it was, staring at him through the long window that ran along the front of the office.

Its stare was piercing, its broad grin ghoulish as it studied him. The glass eyes were softly backlit by some internal light, giving it the faintest yellow glow. The glass separating them seemed so flimsy and weak. Though he couldn’t explain it, Ryan felt a deep, raw loathing coming from it. It wanted to get to him. To hurt him. It had seen him, it now knew for certain that he was there, and it wouldn’t stop until it reached him.

It turned, its gaze scanning past Darcy, missing her, who was still standing against the darkened back wall. They could hear its slow, lumbered footsteps as it made its way knowingly towards the office door. They were frozen. As it reached the far corner of the corridor, Darcy slipped beside the ajar office door and crouched. Ryan, unable to move, looked down at the old animatronic head in his lap and did the only thing he could think of. He took off his glasses and put it on.

Wearing it like a helmet, he sat in the chair and watched as the animatronic reached the door. Everything was silent. He heard a dull thud as its hand pressed against the door followed by a soft creak as it swung slowly inwards, hiding Darcy behind it from view. Ryan held his breath. Unable to see properly, he could just make out its dark, rabbit-eared silhouette as it stepped towards him.

He did not know what was going to happen. Standing there perfectly still, it seemed to be contemplating him. The piercing stare that it had before seemed to dull as it studied him, or rather studied the brown bear head that he was wearing. Ryan hoped that the vents wouldn’t fail again. The animatronic slowly moved out of his line of sight and he could hear it walk past him into the storage room beyond. He could hear it bumping and thudding in there until it went silent for an unbearable amount of time, then finally it turned and left the storage room, walking back past the twins as it moved back through the security office. Neither Ryan nor Darcy moved until it was out of sight of the window.

***

When Scott and Amber rushed out of the office to go back to the other end of the horror house, it wasn’t long before they got distracted by each other and found themselves in what they thought was a dark, secluded area to fool around. It was hard to see the cameras dotted throughout the maze, so they believed that they were hidden. It was another idea of Scott’s. Something to check off before they all left to go back home. After all, who else would be able to say that they had done the same thing?

A soundbite of a child’s voice had suddenly, and more loudly than expected, sounded from the ceiling above them, forcing them to untangle themselves from each other with fearful urgency. Quickly, they figured it was just part of the attraction. The initial shock wore off quickly and, feeling a different kind of excitement brewing within them, they began to resume their exploration of the building.

It was a game. A funhouse. Fazbear’s Fright! They wanted to see what else it had in store for them. As they made their way up to the doorway between the lighted animatronic heads, however, they heard a shuffle of movement coming towards them, stopping on the other side of the wall in the parallel corridor. They paused, hesitant. In that split second their hearts skipped a beat and began to thrum deep inside their chests as a fresh burst of adrenaline coursed through them. Was there someone else in here with them?

Amber held on tight to Scott’s hand. She couldn’t explain the raw fear that she suddenly felt in those few seconds, but him being there gave her small comfort. They waited where they were, staring at the doorway at the end that led off into the corridor where the sound had come from, the lighted Foxy head grinning at them. They waited for the shuffling footsteps to resume towards them, but they never came. Amber, thoroughly immersed in the artificial environment, wanted to stay where they were and be hidden. Her primal fear was conjuring a monster on the other side of that thin wall. One that was still because it was listening out for them, too.

Scott, however, was less concerned. This was a plyboard funhouse loosely modelled after the old pizzeria franchise where five children were known to have disappeared. The footsteps were just part of the attraction and he wanted to see what had caused it. In the back of his mind, he thought that it might be a security guard, but the thing’s movements didn’t seem quite… human. That thought had struck his chest like a poison needle as a small dose of fear spread through him.

The only other thing they had seen in this place was that mouldy old yellow rabbit animatronic that they had walked past. Though nobody said it at the time, he was sure that they all felt the same thing as they walked past it. There was something off about it. He reached the end of the doorway with Amber in tow and was getting ready to peek around it, his duffle bag full of character heads swaying on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. A security guard would have surely called out by now, or at least continued walking. This thing seemed to be holding perfectly still and if they hadn’t already heard it moving, wouldn’t even know that it was there.

The child’s voice sounded again, a laugh coming from down the corridor towards the arcade room. They waited, listening out for any response. A soft whirr and quiet clicks came from just beyond the dark doorway, followed by lumbering, metal footsteps heading away in the direction of the child’s voice. When the sounds went quiet again, they crept into the now empty corridor and up to the doorway of the next one, this time with the empty Bonnie carcass watching them.

There it was. Right at the other end, behind the hanging silver stars stood the dark figure of the animatronic rabbit. It had its back to them and was staring at the arcade machines in front of it. Amber was fearful and uneasy, but Scott still wasn’t sure what to make of it. He almost wanted to test it, to see if he could lure it around the building after him. Amber could just about read his mind and grabbed his arm.

“We should get back to the others and get out of here.” 

Scott didn’t respond. He seemed to be studying the character at the other end of the corridor. Just then, an alarm rang out from the direction of the office where the twins were. The animatronic began to turn back around just as the pair pulled away from the doorway. They headed towards the office but instead of turning right into the passageway beyond that looked into the office, they turned left back into the corridor where they were hidden the first time.

The alarm was loud and rang out for several seconds before falling silent. Had they tripped a security alarm? Were the police now on their way? Either way, that sound had attracted the character and they could now hear its footsteps moving down the corridor they had just slipped out of. They waited behind the wall, listening as it moved past them and on into the next room. It went silent. Scott leaned out to have a look. It was standing side-on in the passageway, staring through the long window into the office.

It seemed to study the area for a moment before turning to follow the path to the doorway. Scott and Amber held still where they were, waiting to hear something happen. The place was completely silent and still. The character had now gone around the corner and disappeared from their view. It would be in the office by now. Where were the twins? Were they able to hide? They waited, holding their breath, listening for any sound of distress to come from the room.

They heard its footsteps again and they quickly hid behind the wall as the animatronic walked back out into the passageway. There had been no sound in the building, so now they didn’t know where it was heading. They listened as it walked in their direction, getting closer with every step, ready to turn and run if that smiling face appeared around the corner. Instead, it turned and walked back towards the arcade room, past the wall that they were hiding behind. Evidently, that was the noisiest room in the building. They relaxed, and Amber even managed a smile.

***

“Holy hell!” Ryan breathed again, taking off the Freddy head. “That actually worked!”

He put his glasses back on and stared at it, slowly brushing his fringe from his eyes. The old animatronic head in his lap was old and worn out, its missing jaw making it look like a macabre opera mask. He looked up as Darcy crept out from her hiding spot behind the door. She looked pale.

“That… felt wrong,” she whispered. “It felt like there was actually a person in the room with us.”

Ryan didn’t reply. He knew exactly what she meant and was glad that he wasn’t the only one who had felt it. He looked at the pile of parts, then back to her.

“You’d better get yourself one of these,” he said, indicating towards the mask on his lap. “It seemed to mistake me for one of the props.” He didn’t want to think about what it would do if it recognised them as human.

Darcy nodded and reached into the large box. After a few moments, she pulled an old, worn-out bear head out from under a bundle of mechanical parts that must have been the mangled remains of a ‘toy’ animatronic, its white-clad limbs splayed out at odd angles. It looked just like Ryan’s, but it was a pale, almost yellow colour and was wearing a purple top hat. This prop still had a price sticker on its cheek, put there during some recent auction. She smiled. It looked too big to fit in her bag, but one way or another, she was taking it with her.

Ryan was looking back at the screen, watching Scott and Amber as they began to wander around again.

“Okay, I’ll lure that thing towards the other end. You go and grab those two.” He peered at the small map in the corner of the screen. “They’re only around the corner from us.

He selected the farthest room from them, that being the entrance that they walked in through, and played the audio. The child’s voice called out ‘ _Hi!’_ into the empty space, then Ryan checked the robot on the cameras to make sure it was heading towards it. He thought it was ironic that he could lure it around with the sound of a child’s voice, when this suit was most likely the one worn by the killer who had used it to lure the kids away all those years ago.

Darcy hurried past the window towards the corridor where Scott and Amber were and got their attention. The three of them made it back to the office and closed the door behind them, locking it while the old Freddy Fazbear prop continued to watch them. None of them had any real faith that the door would keep that thing out if it wanted to get in, but the act of locking it had eased their worries somewhat.

The four of them sat on the floor of the security office, staying low to avoid being seen. They spoke into the hushed silence, murmuring to each other about their speculations. The tension in the air built slightly with every fearful whisper. Darcy told Scott and Amber about the voice messages left on the phone while Ryan kept watch on the computer screen. They had all reached roughly the same conclusion: the animatronic rabbit that was wandering the dark halls of this horror attraction must have been involved with the case of the missing children. It was most likely the same suit that the killer wore.

What they were less certain of was how dangerous it actually was. It should by now just be an old, lumbering, barely functioning piece of hardware from the ‘70s, but there was something about the way it moved about the place, always aiming towards the nearest source of sound. When it was near, there was the distinct presence emanating from it of a living, breathing _person_ who was desperate to find them. They felt a human longing from it. A longing to hurt.

What the four of them had to do now was get out. They had their stolen goods, they had no interest in vandalising the place, and all they wanted to do now was leave. The exit door that was at the top of the stairs outside the office was locked fast, a heavy, windowless door that was bolted from the outside. Scott had quickly attempted to open it but was reluctant to make too much noise in the silent place.

Ryan watched the screen. The animatronic was standing in the arcade room in almost the same place it had been when they first walked past it, facing the machines. It was completely still and almost impossible to make out in the flickering static of the old camera system. The plan now was to lure it to the parallel corridors, specifically the one on the far right that was further away from the arcade. Once it was there, the four of them were going to sneak past it along the other corridor and head out through the entrance door they had walked in through.

They were all crowded around the computer screen studying the small digital map in the corner. Though the maze of corridors had thrown them the wrong way a few times as they wandered down them, the map showed that it was basically just an ‘S’ shape with some extra rooms added to the hairpin corners and on each end. The map made their next trek look easy. The four of them each had a character head to wear if they ran into the rabbit. Scott had a ‘toy’ Bonnie head and Amber had a ‘toy’ Chica head while Darcy and Ryan had their older, bulkier bear heads.

Now was the hard part. Ryan selected the room he wanted and played the audio. The child’s voice rang out through the empty corridor, laughing into the darkness. Ryan switched the camera feed back towards the old animatronic and watched as it stood still in the arcade room, head tilted low as if contemplating the machines. The picture was flickering and becoming grainy, but he could still make out the dark figure, its long ears making it loom in the darkness. It didn’t move.

Ryan played the audio again, hearing it almost in stereo from the nearby room and from the computer. They all watched the screen, waiting for it to take the bait. The picture quality was worsening, but they could just see it moving. Through the flickering static they saw the old rotting rabbit turn its head towards the camera. They all froze as they watched it stare directly at them through the screen. Its eyes, backlit with dull yellow light seemed to pierce into theirs and bore themselves into their memory as the camera feed finally faded away into the void of static. The outdated technology had finally given up.

One by one, the four teenagers stood and looked at each other in the silent office. Each had a character head hanging from their hands. They listened for any sound from the being that lingered in the corridors, their hearts pounding in their ears. After a few moments, Scott hoisted his bag of loot over his shoulder and opened the office door. They slowly filed out into the darkness, wondering what they were about to walk into.


	4. Chapter 4

** 4 **

Nobody said a word as the crept out of the security office into the dark maze. The old, empty shell of Freddy Fazbear that stood outside the office door grinned at them from the gloom in false encouragement. There was nothing left to say. They all knew what they had to do, and they all knew how vital it was to be as silent as possible. Clutching their chosen character heads, ready to throw them on at any second, they strained their ears for any sound, any thud or shuffle, that might indicate where the mechanical creature was. Their own careful footsteps seemed too loud as they crept along the long window of the security office.

This place had felt like a game. A playground for families to wander through and relive a piece of grisly local history that had almost been lost to legend. Walking down the flickering corridors, they now felt incredibly vulnerable. The threat of this mechanical creature in the dark was bringing up a primal fear in each of them, one that they were trying still to keep down. After all, it was surely just a faulty prop. How much danger could they really be in? The oppressive silence felt unnatural, like it hadn’t been there until just now. Then they realised. The ventilation had stopped working again.

The air was slowly becoming stuffy and thick and their combined fear was beginning to play with their minds. Scott, leading the way, turned to look at Amber. She looked back at him, her wide blue eyes emphasised by the scarf pulled up to her nose. The fear in those eyes struck Scott in the chest with a guilty pang as he turned away. He had led her into a few bouts of assorted pranks and mischief before, but this was the first time she seemed genuinely scared for her safety.

The four of them were creeping down the corridor, unconsciously watching the dismantled Bonnie character that stood at the end, when Ryan stopped. Darcy turned to him, concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

Ryan didn’t reply. Scott and Amber had now stopped and were watching him, but Ryan was staring straight ahead. One by one, the others turned to look where he was looking. Ryan knew it was absurd, knew it couldn’t have happened, but he was sure for a moment that the displayed remains of Bonnie had moved. The light from its eye was flickering on and off, and each stretch of pitch-black darkness seemed to grow longer and longer. Ryan was convinced that in those stretches of black, the blue rabbit had moved towards them.

Shaking his head, Ryan looked around at the others and seemed to remember where he was. They were looking from him to the display, trying to see what he was seeing.

“Sorry,” Ryan replied. “I thought I saw… never mind.”

The others looked around uncertainly, then turned to continue their trek through the maze. They reached the corridor decorated with hundreds of silver stars hanging from the ceiling, each one glinting against the dull light. Amber was becoming uneasy; they should have run into the animatronic by now. She walked down the corridor alongside Scott, past the pizza-decorated walls. The black-and-white tiled floor that ran through the whole building was making her second guess where exactly she was. If they weren’t careful, they could easily get turned around.

Amber paused and squinted. Scott saw it too. It was Ryan’s turn to be confused at what they were doing as he and Darcy nearly walked into them. Amber was staring at the silver stars, peering through the glittery decoration at something that didn’t quite belong. Beyond the stars was a pair that glowed a dull yellow, and as the four teenagers stared at them, they realised that they were staring back. They stood rooted to the spot as the eyes, that rotted cartoon grin, began to move towards them at a steady pace. Heavy, mechanical footsteps accompanied its movements like a war drum and only when the animatronic was fully revealed by the flickering light did the group turn to run.

The flickering lights were maddening. The stuffy air was oppressive. Their minds were in a fog of adrenaline and fear as each of them turned and ran, spreading out left and right down the next corridor as they bowled out of the doorway. Amber was reasonably sure that it was Scott who was running beside her, but as for the other two, she had no idea where they went. They turned a corner and found themselves back outside the office, the broken Freddy staring cheerfully into the empty room. They squatted down in the corner under it and pushed the animatronic heads onto their own, wearing them like tight helmets. They waited.

Steadying her breathing, Amber peered out through the yellow chicken mask, searching for any sign of movement. She could hear Scott breathing heavily beside her. She turned and saw him there huddled up next to her, the blue rabbit head almost looking comical. 

“Don’t move, Scott. It should think we’re just props.”

They waited, listening to the various sounds of hurried movement that came from a spot not too far from them, and wondered where the twins were.

Darcy and Ryan had turned left at the doorway and had ended up at the dead end with the old Bonnie display staring at them. They were becoming dizzy and disoriented. The thick air. That floor. That endless, tiled floor. A brief flicker of light revealed another dark doorway to the right which they quickly ducked behind. This corridor was lit only by a light within the old Foxy head, its jaws set in a permanent snarl of silent rage. The twins stopped halfway down the corridor and sat leaning against the walls opposite each other. They put on their heads, Ryan’s a brown Freddy head with a missing jaw, Darcy’s a similar, yellow bear head, and waited.

They could hear it in the dark. They could feel it moving behind the wall, making its way to the doorway they had come through. It had seen them come this way. Ryan turned his head ever so slightly and saw its looming, tall figure silhouetted against the flickering light of the Foxy head behind it. It’s head was tilted slightly to the side as if contemplating them. It stepped closer.

Neither of the twins moved. It stopped between them and stood still. Through the muffled confines of their heavy disguises, they could just hear a soft whirring and clicking coming from it and they dreaded to wonder what it was doing. Ryan could imagine that it was looking down at them both, turning from one to the other. But he didn’t dare look up to see, lest those dull yellow eyes caught him peeking.

They could smell it. Its scent slowly wafted from it as it stood there, daring one of them to move. Despite the old worn technology, the knowledge that it was simply a dated animatronic character from fifty years ago, the fact that it was just a robot running on basic programming, they were sure that it was thinking. There was a consciousness within it, fighting to break through to the surface. It was what kept it here for so long, staring at them as if it knew, really _knew_ that they were people under those masks. It knew that they were vandals. It knew that they were thieves. It knew that they had broken into its home to desecrate it.

Finally, it began to walk away from them. It must have heard the other two somewhere. Ryan looked towards Darcy and saw her playing the part of an inactive animatronic, her arms splayed out on either side of her, her head tilted sideways, revealing her long brown hair flowing out from beneath it. When they were sure the corridor was empty, she stood and turned towards him, still wearing the head.

“We should find the others. I think they went- “

It was fast.

As she spoke, a loud wet snap rang out through the air. Its sticky undertone echoed in Ryan’s ears as he watched his sister collapse like a rag doll. He took off his mask and threw on his glasses to see properly. She was face down on the floor, her body completely limp. Deep red blood flowed from within the yellow bear head’s mouth and with a shaking hand and dawning comprehension, Ryan turned the head and saw glassy animatronic eyes sitting where there were moments ago empty eyeholes. The empty head was now filled with mechanical parts that had been held back by old springlocks. Darcy’s head was gone.

It was the head from a springlock suit. Ryan could see it now. It was the same colour as the rabbit that currently walked the corridors. He stared, hopeless. In a mere instant, her life was ended and his was forever damaged. He wished desperately that he could go back to only a few seconds ago and stop it from happening. But with every painful, choked breath that he took, the sudden moment of her death faded further away, and the blunt began to set in. He wanted to save her. But it was already done.

He stayed there, kneeled on the floor next to her body. He kept speaking her name through constricted vocal cords, making too much noise. The flickering light masked the movement of the rabbit animatronic as it made its way back towards him from the far end of the corridor. Ryan noticed nothing. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing outside of this new reality that was staring up at him from behind those cartoon eyes.

The Foxy head on the wall was the only witness to the scene that played out. The rabbit approached Ryan as he shook, distraught over his twin sister’s body. It stood right next to him, staring down at him as though calculating its next action. Ryan was hardly aware that someone was near him and, believing it to be Scott or Amber, looked up only to see the worn out cartoon face leering down at him, its broad toothy smile like a gaping slash across its face.

From the rabbit’s perspective, Ryan appeared much like a child in distress. Ryan looked up at it with wet, terrified eyes. It triggered a programmed response in the animatronic that would have been very sweet in a different setting, like at a kids’ party at a park on a bustling sunny afternoon. It knelt down in front of him and threw its arms out. It was quick, and before Ryan knew what was going on, he felt its arms wrap around his chest in a stiff hug.

It was tight. Too tight.

The old robotic rabbit squeezed its arms around his chest and before Ryan knew it, the breath had gone out from his lungs. He flailed his arms out into the flickering darkness as the cold, metal embrace tightened further, his ribs beginning to crack. There was no air left in him for him to scream. He struggled against it, fear and adrenaline coursing through him like electricity. His brain was on fire as it struggled for oxygen, the Foxy head on the wall now seeming to laugh at him, jeering at his pain.

A crack sounded deep within him, and then another and another. His ribs broke one by one in quick succession, the stinging pain searing through him with each with renewed cruelty. His bulging eyes were red and bloodshot behind his crooked glasses and blood was forming in his mouth. His heart beat furiously against its ever enclosing surroundings until, with one loud crack, his spine snapped, and he lost all feeling in his body.

Ryan’s head lolled to the side, his eyes now clouding with tunnel vision. The creature released its grip on him and let him fall to his side. He was free, but he could not draw breath. Ryan died alone in the dark corridor next to his twin sister, his body fallen neatly next to hers. The rabbit stood and surveyed them both before turning and disappearing again into the dark.

The Foxy head on the wall only smiled its endless smile into the dark, watching them where they lay.

****

Scott and Amber sat huddled next to each other in their hiding spot wearing their mascot heads. They hadn’t moved from where they were, they only sat still, listening with wide eyes at the sounds they heard in the dark. The creature had seen them, had stepped into the doorway ahead of them and stared. It had only stood there for a few moments before a loud noise from beyond it caused it to return to where it had come from.

They sat unmoving, listening intently to the quiet noises that followed. There was anguish and confusion. The steady footsteps faded as they made their way towards the source and then there was only a short silence that was broken by a dull popping sound. They had no idea what had happened, but there was a dull dread in their stomachs and a dryness in their throats.

More footsteps. It had not forgotten that they were there. Still they sat trying to comprehend. Still they sat hoping that it would just pass them by, and they would be able to stand up and run to the stairs at the other end that they came in from.

It had re-emerged from the darkness and stood once again in the doorway at the other end of the corridor. The light from the security office shone through the long window, illuminating the creature from the right, throwing dark shadows across it. Though its features were half obscured, there was no mistaking the new patch of red that stained its chest. It was fresh and slowly trickling down.

Amber felt her breathing quicken and tried to silence herself. Her throat was tight, and her head was becoming dizzy. Scott was only now appreciating the danger that he had put them all in. He could not take his eyes off of that small patch of red on the rabbit’s chest. His eyes flicked to a spot just behind the rabbit and he thought of Ryan. He was also beginning to see things moving in the dark as the air got worse.

As he thought it, the alarm in the office indicating the low oxygen blared, the red light flashing on and off. They both flinched and sat terrified thinking that the rabbit had seen them move. It turned and looked into the office before looking back at them and walking forwards. It was momentarily bathed in the red light as it flashed on and off giving them the impression that they were flickering between two different realities at once. This was it. Either they would have to fight it off or it would reach them and turn to go into the office towards the sound as dictated by its programming. It reached them and stopped for what felt like an eternity.

The light was now behind it, giving it the appearance of a dark silhouette standing tall before them, the red light from the office window bleeding around its edges. Its dull glowing eyes bore into their plastic disguises, seeming to judge them, seeming to know exactly who they were. The pull of the loud alarm was too much for its programming and it finally turned away from them and walked into the office.

Scott whispered, “Now!” and they both stood and scrambled down the corridor, staying low beneath the long window on their right.

Their mascot heads wobbled and swayed as they ran, disorienting them. All they could see for certain was the black and white tile floor that rolled out endlessly before them. They didn’t turn to see if the rabbit saw them or not; it no longer mattered. All that mattered now was finding the twins and getting out of there. They ran through the doorway that they had seen it come through and turned left. They were sure it had attacked them down there.

The Foxy head stared at them from the other end of the corridor, its jack-o-lantern mouth frozen in an eternal laugh. The light within it flickered, revealing a scene on the floor that Scott and Amber were unable to immediately determine. Two figures lay side by side on the floor in a deep red pool of blood that was slowly broadening. Amber stood and took in the scene from within her character mask. The grinning, cartoon, yellow chicken mask. It felt like an insult to wear it. She took it off and stared at the two bodies, a lump forming in her throat, her breath catching in her chest. It could not be real.

Scott took off his blue rabbit head to see better and stepped forwards to get a better look. To understand what he was looking at more clearly. He knelt down, speechless, at the agonised and bloodied face of Ryan Sheppard who lay next to his twin sister Darcy. Her disguise was fitted permanently in place, now. Nobody would again see her face. His chest hurt and he felt dizzy. Their parents were waiting for them to come home. They had only left to go get a meal and hang out with their new friends. Scott and Amber. Their new friends.

They both looked up and looked towards the office. It was quiet. The alarm had stopped ringing, but they weren’t sure when. The light from within the Foxy head flickered one last time and went out, dropping them in pitch-black darkness. The old circuits had finally blown, just as they had with the cameras and the vents. 

They both stood perfectly still. The place had gone completely quiet. Scott fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone and turned on the light. As he did, he saw that it had 38% battery remaining. Amber also turned on her phone’s light and shone it around. She huddled up closer to Scott and together they stepped over the corpses on the floor and continued onwards.

Their dull phone lights held in front of them, they reached the end of the corridor and turned left through the doorway. Scott flinched and gasped, unnerved. In front of him was the remains of the original Bonnie on its stand, the one Ryan had been fearful of. He was sure that its head was turned and that it was now looking directly at him. It had no eyes, though Scott truly felt that it was watching him. They moved on.

There were eyes in the dark. He was sure of it. All of them were watching as they moved back towards the entrance to this basement attraction that they had broken into. To steal from. To vandalise. The thick darkness pressed against them and they were beginning to feel that there were too many things moving around them just outside the pitiful reaches of their phone lights. The air was getting to them.

Scott and Amber moved slowly, their phones held out high in front of them. The pale white lights revealed only the grey walls littered with old crayon drawings. Soon it fell away to reveal a black doorway further along to the right. A sound. A knock up ahead. They stopped and listened, their heads turned in the direction of the noise. The darkness was so absolute that they were beginning to see dull faces and swirling lights as their eyes strained for stimulus. There it was again. That soft knock up ahead, but now closer. They couldn’t stay there. The animatronic in the dark would do to them what it had done to the twins. The animatronic that was most likely staring at them right now from the dark.

Amber took Scott’s hand and led him through the dark doorway, their phone lights revealing the glittering silver stars that hung above their heads. As silently as they could, they reached the other end where two doorways greeted them. One led straight ahead to the small arcade room, the other led to the right directly to the next corridor. Amber aimed for the doorway on the right, which was the most direct way out, but Scott hesitated. For an instant, he thought he saw a figure stepping out of that doorway. It was a yellow chicken animatronic wearing a white bib, the old Chica character, and Amber was about to walk right into it. He grabbed her and led her instead into the arcade ahead of them.

As soon as he did it, he realised that he had imagined it. There were no other animatronics in this building and the only salvaged piece of Chica was the head on the floor of the next corridor, yet Scott had the unmistakable feeling that there were other things in this building than a faulty robot.

They both heard a shuffle from the corridor they had just left, and they stood frozen behind the wall to the right of the doorway they had just gone through. Their eyes could just make out the arcade machines in front of them as they leaned against the wall. Their phone lights glinted in streaks along the edges of the smooth metal and plastic, and they hastily turned them off and waited in the thick darkness, hearing the creature stepping towards them, hoping that it would pass them by and go back the direction it came.

They could feel it. Its presence. Its intent. They couldn’t tell where it was nor would they have any hope of seeing it in this oppressive darkness, but it was _there._ The only thing they would be able to see was the dull glow of its eyes and by then it would be too late. Scott could feel Amber trembling beside him, her hand clasped in his. He gave it a squeeze and felt her go still. The sound of the creature near them had gone quiet and they realised that it could literally be anywhere.

No longer worried about hiding his face, Scott pulled off his balaclava. The air had gotten too stuffy for him and was affecting his perception. There were faces in the dark, swirling in the corners, on the screens, in his periphery. He was seeing things and was beginning to get a headache from the lack of fresh air. He breathed deeply and paused, his fear ramping up at what he could smell. Smoke. He gripped Amber’s hand again and turned to her.

“Do you smell that? Something’s burning.”

Amber pulled her scarf down from her face and sniffed the air. She could smell it, too. If there was a fire, it wouldn’t take long for it to rip through the building. Though they looked like concrete, the walls were made of plywood. They had to escape, but they had to know where the lone animatronic was first.

Scott turned on his phone light again and leaned to his left to look down the corridor they had come from. It was empty, the stars glinting above him in a thin haze of smoke. The corridor beyond the far doorway was starting to glow in the flickering light and the smoke crawling along the ceiling from it was getting thicker and darker. One of the fuses in the security office must have blown and caused a spark. Unsure where the animatronic was, Scott took of his duffle bag and held it in his hand dangling from its strap. Its contents didn’t matter anymore. None of this mattered anymore. He swung it back and threw it forwards down the starry corridor, hearing it clang and spill out across the tiled floor.

Scott hid back behind the wall next to Amber and listened for its footsteps, hoping to have drawn its attention. Hoping to have drawn it towards the fire. The arcade room was slowly getting brighter as the flames got closer, but the smoke in the air was getting thicker and was now stifling their breath. Scott peeked and saw the animatronic standing just beyond their doorway staring down into the corridor at the heads with its back to them. He pulled back and indicated to Amber that now was their chance to go. They headed for the other arcade doorway, the one to the next corridor, and crept through it.

The smoke was getting too thick, and Amber began to cough in a panic. They were at the doorway that skipped the arcade and went straight into the next corridor, the rabbit standing just beyond it. Scott stared in horror as it turned and looked directly at them. Its body rotated on the spot as its head stayed where it was, never breaking its gaze from them. Scott grabbed Amber’s hand and began to run down the corridor. The smoke was thick and dark, and it was racing along the ceiling ahead of them, floating lower and lower, obscuring their view and choking their lungs.

They focused on the tiled floor and felt along the grey walls. They were moving steadily until Amber tripped on the yellow Chica head that was on the ground. They stumbled and fell. The rabbit was behind them, shrouded by the smoke. Scott had Amber by the waist and tried to lift her. She let out a painful scream. It had reached them. Scott looked back and saw that rotting cartoon smile, the eyes boring into his own. It had grabbed Amber by the ankle, and it had it in a death-grip. The image of Ryan’s lifeless, crushed body flashed through Scott’s mind and he lunged at it. 

They tumbled over. It was, after all, an old first generation animatronic. Surely it would take it a while to stand back up once it’s knocked over onto its back. Scott scrambled to get back to his feet and kept low to keep out of the smoke that was now billowing in from the doorway behind them. He turned back towards Amber and found her hobbling on the spot. Her foot was beyond use. He put his arm around her waist and supported her as she limped towards the final corridor ahead of them.

The fire was roaring behind them and the grey painted wall to their right was glowing red and yellow through the cracks and edges of the plywood. The heat and hazy smoke was stifling and though they didn’t have far left to go, it was hard to tell where they were going.

They were just through the last doorway when they heard it. Scott paused and turned around in disbelief. The rabbit animatronic was on its back where he had left it, the flames close behind it. It was staring at them intently, almost pleadingly. In that moment, it seemed all too human. Scott almost felt pity for it, as if it actually were a person inside a suit. What made him think this was not so much its posture or the helpless position it was in, but rather the sound from it that Scott and Amber had heard.

It spoke.

They were sure of it. Amongst the chaos of the fire and the destruction, the loss of lives and the devastation that was still to come, they were sure that they had heard a clear human voice come from it.

“Help me.”

The flames had reached it and were now licking at its side, ready to engulf it in a matter of seconds. Amber pulled Scott away and they made their way finally towards the stairway at the end of the corridor. The climb up the stairs was tediously slow with Amber’s useless foot. On the ground floor, the photos of the missing children and the old owners smiled at them from the walls as they hobbled their way to the side exit back into the alleyway, the floor beneath them threatening to crumble. One of the pictures stuck out in Scott’s mind as they passed it but there was no time to dwell on it.

They spilled out into the alleyway and breathed in the fresh air. The smoke was pluming from the warehouse into the night sky and there were sirens in the distance. They reached the car and, after Scott fumbled with the keys for a moment, climbed in and started it up. He reversed the car out onto the main road and parked on the other side, seeing the fire trucks barrelling down the road towards them. They had no thoughts of running. They both needed medical attention. The twins needed to be recovered. All of their parents needed to be notified.

Scott checked his phone. Now that he had reception again, voice messages and texts from his father were now coming through, one after the other. Amber’s phone was much the same. He spared a thought for Darcy’s and Ryan’s phones once they were pulled out. If they weren’t destroyed, would they both vibrate and ring repeatedly as soon as they got signal? It was 1:35pm. All of their parents would have been in contact with each other by now trying to find out where they were. The twins’ parents phone calls would go unanswered by them, but their phone would ring tonight.

Scott turned off the engine and looked over at Amber. She sat next to him in the passenger seat, curled up and shaking. She would not meet his eye.

They both sat in silence and stared at the burning building that they had just escaped. Smoke and flames were billowing out from the roof and they thought they heard some part of it collapse inside. They could still feel the heat from it as they sat in the car. The fire trucks had pulled up and the firefighters were dousing the flames, the jets of water rising up in white streams. A firefighter was approaching the car. He wanted to talk to them.

The rest of the night was a haze for Scott. All of their parents had been notified and had arrived quickly. The twins’ parents were inconsolable. The others were horrified but they at least still had their children to hug. Never had Scott felt so young and foolish as he looked out at the devastation he had caused. The owners had arrived and were talking to the firemen in charge. The police had arrived. Blue and red lights from the parked vehicles flashed persistently in his eyes. Amber hadn’t spoken to him. Hadn’t looked at him. She was in a different vehicle wearing an oxygen mask and having her ankle checked over. Her parents were with her. Scott’s father, Carlton and his grandfather, Clay were with him.

His mind came into focus only when two stretchers were wheeled out of the smouldering remains of the warehouse and the gut-wrenching wails of their parents filled the air. His eyes blurred and his cheeks trickled as he watched. His throat clicked and his breath caught in his chest as he looked away.

It was all his fault.


	5. Chapter 5

The tragedy of that night shook the school as various versions of it spread from student to student. Suddenly everyone knew who the Sheppard twins were. Suddenly several people claimed that they had always known them and had been good friends with them. The only two people who knew what had really happened that night hadn’t been seen and wouldn’t be back to school for some time. An investigation was conducted to determine the cause of the fire at Fazbear’s Fright and there were pending charges against both Scott and Amber for breaking and entering the establishment. The owners were under scrutiny for their lack of safety standards and the use of second-hand wiring and circuitry for the security cameras, which it was determined had sparked the fire.

The rabbit animatronic was to be collected for investigation, but there had been no trace found of the creature amongst the smouldering ruins. Police believed it to be the original ‘Bonnie’ animatronic worn by William Afton. It was a convertible suit that doubled from being wearable to functioning as a fully automated animatronic. It was state-of-the-art for the time. The police had reason to believe that Mr Afton had been involved in the disappearances of the four children in 1987, with another child from a separate case possibly linked to him.

The next few weeks drifted by in a haze. Scott barely left his room after his questioning with the police, only leaving for his therapy sessions. Amber hadn’t responded to any of his texts or calls and each time he checked his phone and saw no new replies his chest heaved with grief. He knew why she wasn’t responding. She blamed him. The whole thing had been his idea. He had wanted to go to find out more about the old restaurant and the mystery around it that his dad had grown up through and never talked about. She thought the whole thing was in poor taste and was set to profit in blood money. The twins… the poor twins… they only wanted to go along with their new friends and make a name for themselves in a town where they were unknown nobodies.

A funeral was held for them two weeks after the incident. The coroner had released the bodies back to their parents after the causes of their deaths were determined and they were promptly cremated. The cause of Ryan’s death was quickly discovered. Though his body was charred, there were no signs of smoke inhalation. He had died before the blaze had reached him. He had crush injuries around his chest cavity so severe that his internal organs had been forced upwards into, and blocking, his throat. His lungs were splintered with fragments of his broken ribs and one of his eyes had been partially pushed out.

Darcy’s death was harder to determine as it was impossible to remove the old Fredbear animatronic head. Only when they had transferred her charred body onto the slab at the coroner’s office, and the head and its contents snapped away from her shoulders could the cause be quickly explained. The head was wearable only while the animatronic parts were held back by springlocks. When these failed, the parts immediately forced themselves back into their proper position and completely destroyed anything in between them. Her skull and its contents had been pushed through the head’s mouth and around the eye sockets, while her hair was bunched up along the back, some of it still hanging out the bottom.

Scott Burke did not attend the funeral, which was a quiet affair attended by only a small group of relatives. The twins’ parents had made it clear that Scott was to stay away and not to contact them. A small part of their ashes were buried in the cemetery grounds under a small white plaque nestled in the fresh green lawns. Their parents had not been seen since and were rumoured to have moved away with the remainder of the ashes in two small urns.

Scott had begun to dream about them. Mostly, they were standing before him in a long, endless corridor, both wearing bear heads. Darcy’s was yellow with a purple hat, Ryan’s was brown with a black one. He would turn to run from them only to come face-to-face with the old yellow ‘Bonnie’ character as it loomed behind him. Sometimes he would dream that they were waiting for him at school, perfectly normal. He would tell them sheepishly that he thought for sure, was absolutely certain, that they were dead. They would laugh and tell him that no, they were fine. Of course, they were fine. It was okay. Those were the dreams he preferred.

Scott sat on the end of his bed, staring at the sent messages on his phone. They were all addressed to Amber who had not replied to any of them. It had been three weeks since the incident and last he saw of her she was being treated in a nearby ambulance. She had been limping after the rabbit had grabbed her by the ankle. He typed out a new message, one that read ‘ _Amber, please’_ and sent it. He sat in the silent bedroom waiting to see those three dots appear next to her name indicating that she was replying. None appeared and he lied back onto the bed, putting his phone aside.

There was a knock on the door. Carlton Burke entered and looked around the dark, messy room before focusing on his son. His son, the image of him. The same red hair and the same sly smirk he used to get when he thought of a quip. The smirk that had been absent for the past few weeks. He looked down at his son and spoke.

“Are you okay?”

Scott didn’t look at him but continued to stare at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. How could he look at him? How could he meet his gaze and look him in the eye after what he had caused? If only his father had told him, really sat down and talked to him about what had happened when he was young. Scott might not have been so curious to see for himself. He felt a low anger rising in him again, a misdirected rage aimed at his father.

“I’m fine. Go away.”

“Scott,” Carlton sighed. He looked at him with tired eyes. “Talk to me. I know how you f—”

“No, you don’t! How could you? You were never responsible for two of your friends getting killed!”

“Yes, I was.”

Scott looked over at him and could see that Carlton was on the verge of telling him something he had never talked about openly. He bit his tongue and waited.

“Scott, I may not have been in the same situation as you are, but I know the feeling all the same. Maybe I should have told you about it when you first started asking questions. When that damn place started opening.” He walked across the room and leaned back on the window ledge opposite where Scott was sitting.

“When I was six years old, I was at a birthday party at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It was this brand new place with all of these colourful characters running around. It was incredible. Even when you’re a kid, you can always tell when it’s a person in a suit, but these characters were different. They were real. Every family in town had gone there in its first week, and that’s no exaggeration.

“I was there for a birthday party, I’m not really sure whose anymore, some kid in my class. I was there with my two friends Gabriel and Jeremy. The place was crowded and noisy and it was easy to wander off. There were those characters walking up and down the hallway with their plates of food serving it to us kids. Well, one character came up and seemed to speak to my friends. I was off with some other kids playing around with Freddy Fazbear and I looked over to see this yellow rabbit standing in front of them. It didn’t look right. This one didn’t feel real. It was some guy in a suit. I keep playing with Freddy and when I look over again, I see Gabriel and Jeremy walking off, following the rabbit at a distance as it led them. It looked at me. The whole thing felt wrong.

“Pretty soon theirs parents start to look for them and more and more time passes, and the boys don’t come back. I should have told them what I saw right away, but I was scared that the rabbit was going to come back for me. And I thought that surely someone else had seen the same thing that I had.” Carlton was looking at the ground as he spoke, his eyes seeing something that happened a lifetime ago.

“Two more kids went missing the next day. Your grandad was a detective back then, and when nobody came forward with any information, I told him what I saw. Of course, by then, it was too late. None of them have been found since.” He looked back up at Scott, who hadn’t moved nor made any attempt to interrupt, despite his phone pinging by his side as a message came through.

“If only I said something right away, they might have found them in time. That will always be on me. I’m not the one who did it, but I could have saved them, and I didn’t. I always felt responsible.”

Scott thought for a moment, those last words hanging uncomfortably long in the air.

“I think it was the same rabbit,” Scott mumbled.

“Well, that’s for your grandad to find out. He’s been pushing for the case to be re-opened ever since that place started going up.”

Scott was silent for a moment, thinking only of the friends that he had lost.

“Dad,” he began, not looking him in the eye and refusing to blink lest his cheeks become wet. “What do I do now? They’re gone because of me! What do I do when I can’t stop thinking about them?”

“You cry,” Carlton replied simply. They looked each other in the eyes, understanding each other better than they had ever before. They had now both been affected in the same way, by the same cause, by the same fault. They were more like each other than the realised. “You just… cry.”

They sat for a moment, neither of them speaking. Eventually, Carlton stood up and left the bedroom, giving Scott’s shoulder a squeeze on the way out. Scott sat for a while and, after wiping his eyes, picked up his phone to read the new message. It was from Amber.

For the first time since asking her out what felt like a lifetime ago, he felt a flutter of nerves about reading it. Swallowing, he opened the message and his heart sank.

_‘Stop messaging me.’_

He threw the phone down and sat slumped over on the end of his bed, not moving.

*****

It was late afternoon and the cemetery was quiet. A soft breeze swept across the deep green lawns making the grass blades flicker against the edges of the low, white headstones. A car crept slowly through the opening between the white fence that ran along the perimeter and continued on down the single lane road. It parked and Scott Burke climbed out, alone. He walked silently along the rows of headstones, making his way towards the small plaques. He walked along them and stopped, having found what he was looking for.

There lay a small, white plaque with the names of his old schoolmates on it.

_Darcy Sheppard & Ryan Sheppard_

_2001 – 2017_

_Taken too soon_

_Rest in Peace._

On the plaque was no blame, no explanation. Only the names and dates of the departed that were relevant only to those who knew them. Scott sat and stared at it for longer than he intended or realised. The letters began to blur and shimmer, and he closed his eyes, seeing only the faces of the dead.

A second car had rolled into the cemetery and came to a halt behind his own. Scott didn’t look up, only listened as the stranger’s footsteps crunched on the gravel towards him. He hoped it wasn’t someone he knew. The footsteps stopped short just behind him and he heard an unexpected voice address him. It was his grandfather, Clay Burke.

“Hey, Scott. Your dad said you might be here.”

Scott turned around and looked up into the old, lined face. Hi grandfather was a tall, thin man. His hair had been brown in his heyday, but it was now almost completely grey. He looked Scott directly in the eyes as Scott stood up to meet him.

Though he was his beloved grandfather, Scott always felt intimidated by the man. He had been a detective during the case of 1987 and later become the Chief of Police. He had worked tirelessly on the case and had a suspect that he was personally sure of, though never had the evidence to convict him. He was retired, but the opening of Fazbear’s Fright had caused him to push for the case be reopened. Due to his intimate knowledge, he was asked to come back to help work with the police as more evidence came to light. All that was left was to recover the old suit and see if they could get a DNA sample. Though he was not uncaring, he was often quick to get to the point of his visits.

“So, Scott,” he began. He was much like his son, Carlton. “How are you doing? Are you coping okay?”

Here it was. The same old questions. The same questions that Scott was dreading to hear over and over again when he went back to school.

“I’m doing fine, thanks,” Scott replied flatly. “Except for the part were two of my friends died because of me and my girlfriend won’t talk to me, I’m doing good.”

Clay could take the hint. He looked around across the cemetery and considered what he was interrupting.

“Okay, sure. I won’t waste your time. But I do want to ask you something if you’ll let me.” Scott nodded, and Clay continued. “As you know, I was on the old case back in the eighties. Your dad was classmates with two of the kids that went missing and it so easily could have been him, so I was taking it very seriously.” Scott said nothing and listened. He had heard the story before, but not from him.

“Your father said that he saw a man in a yellow rabbit suit. We checked the cameras, but they showed very little. They would glitch out whenever that character got to close and there was no footage of it directly with the kids. I interviewed every single person that worked there, even pulled up information from the animatronics there. They were all tied in to our database at the time to spot any known predators. They all had nothing. But there was one guy who just rubbed me the wrong way. The owner, William.

“See, that suit looked like one of the old ones that the two owners, William and Henry, used to wear at the old diner.” Scott’s heart skipped a beat. That name. It had been buried in the back of his mind for the last few weeks, buried under the grief. He had seen in on the wall of the museum when he and Amber were escaping the fire. It had struck him then, but he had forgotten it until now. Clay continued.

“Henry hadn’t been seen since his daughter died, so William was the man in charge ever since. He was very helpful with the investigations, even set up a charity for the affected families. It was a blow to his company’s image, but he fought through it and was determined to prove that his restaurant was safe. But it always seemed pretend to me.

“I asked him about the suit, and he told me that he would sometimes test it. It was wearable, but it was ultimately an animatronic just like the others. He told me that he would sometimes activate it and have it interact with the children. Said he wanted to bring it back as a character. Springtrap, as it was called by the techs back then. It used to be called Bonnie, but that name now belonged to the blue rabbit since the yellow one was decommissioned. He wanted to call it Spring Bonnie.

“So, anyway,” Clay pulled out a folder from his jacket and opened it, pulling out a large photograph. “Was this the animatronic that you saw that night?”

Scott looked at it. It was a photo of two yellow animatronics up on a stage. They were brand new. One was a big bear with a purple top hat and the other was a rabbit with a large smile.

“Yes,” Scott replied. “That’s the same one.”

“I thought it might have been. This will sound weird, but was there anybody inside the suit? William and the suit went missing not long after the franchise closed, and I have reason to believe that he was killed by it malfunctioning while he was wearing it.”

“Killed?” Scott thought about the voice he heard call out to him as he reached the stairs. The one he never told anyone about. He swore it said, ‘ _Help me’,_ but now thought that it may have said something else. It may have said, _‘Henry’._ The voice didn’t sound pleading; it sounded angry. Though if the man was dead, there was no reason to think that it had spoken at all. If there was a man inside that suit and he was alive, he was almost certainly dead now. Although, the animatronic was never recovered from the wreckage. Clay interrupted his thoughts.

“We were so close to bringing it in for examination and finally finding out, but now…” he sighed. It would still be the case that eluded him. Another effect of Scott’s misadventures. “Anyway, that was all I wanted to ask. You take care of yourself.”

He left without another word and Scott watched as the man started his car and drove out of the cemetery, the gravel crunching beneath the wheels. Scott turned back towards the small plaque. He should have brought something to place by it, or at least prepared something to say. Instead, he thought of the happier dreams he had had of them. The ones where he had sat next to them in class and told them that he thought they were dead. The ones where they both looked at him and with a laugh told him that they were fine. Everything was okay.

He didn’t believe that. It wasn’t okay, and never would be.

A cool breeze swept across the lawns of the cemetery, dead leaves swirling around his feet. He began to shake, alone in the green lawn, his shoulders hunched and his head down, face hidden. He shook, but not because of the cold breeze.

*****

The bell rang out through the still air from Hurricane High School. A mob of students filed into the hallways towards their classrooms. Scott avoided everyone’s eye as he moved through the crowds. There was only one person he wanted to see, but she was avoiding him as much as he was avoiding everyone’s stares. She had him blocked on all social media and he hadn’t heard anything about her. She wanted him to leave her alone and he was honouring that, though he still wanted to get a glimpse of her.

Finally, he spotted her waiting outside of a classroom door with some other girls. She was on crutches and Scott was shocked to see that she was missing a foot. The grip that the animatronic, Springtrap, had had on her ankle proved devastating. She was talking with the other girls, her new friends. She almost looked happy.

Scott no longer wanted her to see him. He wanted to get away from them, away from everyone. He wanted desperately for everything to just go back to how it was. The girls went quiet and Scott saw that they were looking at him. The slight smile that had been on Amber’s face vanished when she realised who they were looking at. Scott’s and Amber’s eyes met, and in that moment he understood. They had spoken so completely and without words, and he understood her better than he ever had.

Like him, she blamed him for everything. Like him, she missed the twins fiercely and regretted them coming with them. She had been lucky. She had kept her life, permanently altered though it may be. Like him. The bell rang again, and Amber and the other girls filed into the classroom. Scott turned and began to hurry towards his own.

It would take time, but everything would become normal again. They had been through so much in only a few weeks, but they would get through it. Just not yet. The pain would leave, and the dreams would happen less and less often. The bad dreams would stop and for a while only the good dreams would remain. The good dreams would begin to feel like memories and one day he would be able to convince himself that they were real, that he _had_ seen the twins that one last time in the classroom when he asked them if they were okay. If they were dead. He would remember how they told him that they were fine, and he would remember the endearing laugh that they gave him.

They were fine and they did not blame him. He would remember how they sat together for that last class and how they left smiling when it ended. He would convince himself that he’d one day see them again.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do for now.

** THE END **


End file.
